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Talk:Mars/@comment-37765878-20181212115630
Mars will probably not be terraformed to a 2nd earth. Terraforming Planets is inefficient and will never be a perfect match in regard to mimic earth conditions. Instead of undergoing a terraforming project that could take centuries, if not millenia to complete (and even then: The gravity of the planet can not be changed, unless you somehow increase its density - and gravity is the governing factor for biological life originating from earth), they should dissassemble the planet and built O'Neill Cylinders instead, that can provide living space several hundred million times of what Mars could provide with its planetary surface alone. Dissassembling all the rocky planets would result in serveral trillions of O'Neil Cylinders which would allow for quadrillions of people to live in these space habitats. Yes, I know, these numbers are mindboggling - but that's just the reality of those space habitats and what they actually allow us to do when it comes to 'colonizing' space. 6 Megatons at most for each cylinder - an incredible amount of habitats are possible. The Behemoth is basicly an O'Neill Cylinder - albeit a very small one (and I believe it's even way too small for an interstellar mission to be viable). O'Neill Cylinders, in their basic version, are 20 miles long and 5 miles wide and can house up to half a million people. Using Aluminum, or better yet graphine, McKendree Cylinders would be possible (they are also called "continent-class habitats") - these giant space habitats could house tens of millions of people - with enough room and food for everybody on board. You can spin up the habitats to any g you want; put in whatever you want; pressurize this thing in any atm you want - and you can build billions from the materials found in the asteroid belt alone. Converting an earth mass would be equally mindboggling. We're talking about 10^9 sqm of living space, or a billion worth of earth's surface area... no planet - regardless of its 'earthiness' (and that, paradoxicly, includes Earth itself) could rival that amount of living space and comfort. Plus those habitats could be built with existing technology and within a couple of years (assuming the necessary infrastructure in near earth orbit is present to begin construction - so that has to be built first; possibly even a mass-driver operated on the moon). So, in conclusion: Terraforming is a wasteful endeavor, with a living space at the end of the project that can't justify the monumental task of having changed an entire planetary climate to a specific set of paramerters over the course of at least a millenium. It's even a criminal waste of material, because it dramatically limits the amount of people that 'could' be born and live in O'Neill Cylinders instead (with the material provided by the planet that needs to be canibalized for this purpose). Terraforming planets will be probably just a prestige project that won't serve any serious goal in space colonization. Most humans will live in habitats in the (not so far-) future, while living on an actual planet will probably be considered as being odd and strange; maybe even reserved for the rich and powerful only. The whole notion of terraforming a planet like Mars, in light of the better options available, is basicly ludicrous. On a passive aggressive note: Yes, I know... the terraforming of Mars is kind of an emotionally laden thing for most people (almost equal to religious sentiments). They don't care if it's wasteful and actually harms the survivability of mankind - living on a planet and terraforming Mars is a staple in Sci/Fi, but when we look at it objectively: It's not a logical or effective way to colonize space at all. -Tristan